Upgrade StorageZotero should not require an account for usage on Android
Zotero should not require an account for usage on Android. Zotero requiring an account on the Android version doesn't match with what the privacy policy of Zotero says under "Data We Collect": "Zotero can be used without creating an account."
Making creating an account on Android optional also reduces the barrier needed for new users. I assume some of the reason in the login requirement may come from Zotero for Android potentially being treated as a companion app for Zotero on the desktop. But many people can't afford a computer, such as in lower income countries such as India.
Zotero looks interesting but for my use case I wish not to use an account. I hope a skip button will be added in the first startup page on Android.
I hope my request will lead to a change letting users use Zotero on Android without an account.
On another note, thanks for creating Zotero. I appreciate all the engineering effort gone into the app and the surrounding services.
Making creating an account on Android optional also reduces the barrier needed for new users. I assume some of the reason in the login requirement may come from Zotero for Android potentially being treated as a companion app for Zotero on the desktop. But many people can't afford a computer, such as in lower income countries such as India.
Zotero looks interesting but for my use case I wish not to use an account. I hope a skip button will be added in the first startup page on Android.
I hope my request will lead to a change letting users use Zotero on Android without an account.
On another note, thanks for creating Zotero. I appreciate all the engineering effort gone into the app and the surrounding services.
The mobile apps are intended primarily as companion apps to the desktop app, which is why they require syncing. They're never going to have anywhere close to the full functionality of the desktop app, and due to platform restrictions that wouldn't even be possible. We're not going to purport to offer a substitute for the desktop app when we literally can't build anything approaching that.
(As one example, when it arrives on mobile, word processor integration — a fairly central part of Zotero for many/most people — will only be technically possible via a plugin running within Word for iOS/Android that connects directly to the web library. A mobile Word plugin couldn't talk directly to the Zotero app. So even if it didn't require the desktop app, it would still require syncing just for core functionality that the desktop app can provide offline.)
If you sync with Zotero then an account seems to make sense. However, if you sync using WebDAV, an account shouldn't be required unless I am misunderstanding something. If "data syncing" needs to also support WebDAV then it should do that. Or another option for self-hosting should be made available.
The end goal is to have a Zotero mobile app not dependent on Zotero servers. This should also reduce server costs on Zotero's end.
You'll have to make your own decision about whether that means Zotero isn't for you (which is perfectly fine, of course)
Many other pieces of software like Anki offer solutions for self-hosting syncing yourself. Hide this from regular users if you think that's necessary. Many people are interested in self-hosting.
We should trust the user enough to let them make the decisions on who to trust which handles syncing their data (basically Zotero or themselves).
There doesn't appear to be any reason not to support use cases like this.
Zotero is a nice piece of software and it would be unfortunate not being able to use it as you want because needing an account does not fit in your use case.